Title:  History of the United Netherlands, 1586

Author:  John Lothrop Motley

Release Date:  January, 2004 [EBook #4850] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 5, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK history united Netherlands, 1586 ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger widger@cecomet.net

[Note:  There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author’s ideas before making an entire meal of them.  D.W.]

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year’s Truce—­1609

By John Lothrop Motley

MOTLEY’S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 50

History of the United Netherlands, 1586

CHAPTER XI

     Drake in the Netherlands—­Good Results of his Visit—­The Babington
     Conspiracy—­Leicester decides to visit England—­Exchange of parting
     Compliments.

Late in the autumn of the same year an Englishman arrived in the Netherlands, bearer of despatches from the Queen.  He had been entrusted by her Majesty with a special mission to the States-General, and he had soon an interview with that assembly at the Hague.

He was a small man, apparently forty-five years of age, of a fair but somewhat weather-stained complexion, with light-brown, closely-curling hair, an expansive forehead, a clear blue eye, rather commonplace features, a thin, brown, pointed beard, and a slight moustache.  Though low of stature, he was broad-chested, with well-knit limbs.  His hands, which were small and nervous, were brown and callous with the marks of toil.  There was something in his brow and glance not to be mistaken, and which men willingly call master; yet he did not seem, to have sprung of the born magnates of the earth.  He wore a heavy gold chain about his neck, and it might be observed that upon the light full sleeves of his slashed doublet the image of a small ship on a terrestrial globe was curiously and many times embroidered.

It was not the first time that he had visited the Netherlands.  Thirty years before the man had been apprentice on board a small lugger, which traded between the English coast and the ports of Zeeland.  Emerging in early boyhood from his parental mansion—­an old boat, turned bottom upwards on a sandy down he had naturally taken to the sea, and his master, dying childless not long afterwards, bequeathed to him the lugger.  But in time his spirit, too much confined